Military focused gaming charity Operation Supply Drop has teamed up with Bionik Monkey for a major charity event for the entire month of March called Gamers March 4 Troops. Running until March 31st, and available exclusively through gmft.bionikmonkey.com, supporters can help the Operation Supply Drop cause by purchasing a Limited Edition Flex-Fit Operation Supply Drop Tactical Hat.
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Unity announced today the release of Unity 5, the version of its popular game development suite. The company announced two versions of Unity 5: Unity 5 Professional, and Unity 5: Personal.

Unity 5 Personal, is a completely free version for developers with revenue or funding less than $100,000 a year. It includes the full engine, but no advanced services package. The Personal version also doesn't allow building out games on Xbox 360.

NSA whistleblower and fugitive Edward Snowden said through his lawyer that he would be willing to return to the United States to face charges for leaking classified NSA documents on the agencies vast spying apparatus used against American citizens, foreign governments, and people around the world.

Microsoft has finally extended the Xbox One Preview program to Xbox 360 owners. Despite the age of Microsoft's last-generation console, Microsoft revealed this week at GDC that it will extend the preview program to the system later this year. The preview program allows Xbox 360 owners to try out dashboard and other system-wide changes before they are officially deployed.

Markus "Notch" Persson, co-founder of Mojang and the creator of Minecraft, has managed to make the Forbes Billionaires List. Persson generated his current holdings when he sold off the company he co-founded and the Minecraft franchise to Microsoft in September of last year for around $2.5 billion. Persson owned 70 percent of Mojang, giving him a pretty hefty payday when the company was sold to Microsoft. Persson left the company shortly thereafter.

Yesterday, HTC's chairwoman suggested that the company was working alongside Valve to create a special version of Half-Life for the new VR headset, the Vive. But it turns out that HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang may have misspoken. Following Valve denying that a VR-version of its popular game was being developed, Wang acknowledged her error to the BBC.

Vox Media's video game focused site Polygon has hired The Mary Sue founder Susana Polo. The appointment shows that Polygon wants to ramp up its coverage of all things non-gaming, and perhaps bring a bit more focus to topics that women are interested in.

A new massive update for the PC version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim now makes it possible to create mods for the popular RPG of unlimited scope and size.

The biggest change is that the Creation Kit no longer has a file size limit for Steam Workshop mods, meaning you can now find mods in Steam Workshop that are larger than 100 MB. The update also changes the way that mods are downloaded - with everything being handled within Steam now.

After saying it left local cooperative play out of the PC version of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 due to stability issues, Capcom had decided to add it into the game this week. The company's change of heart was likely due to a mod released last week that enabled local co-op play (showing that it did not affect performance in any way). While that mod is still available for use, Capcom decided to release local co-op play alongside the Raid Mode introduced in a recently released patch.

The party is officially over for those who were using an exploit in the 3DS web browser to load unsigned code. Nintendo released a new firmware update today that eliminates a web browser exploit that allowed users to inject code within downloaded games. The exploit was being used by some to load and run pirated Game Boy Color ROMs, made it so that games could be played regardless of region-locking, and even allowed some to bypass actually paying for micro-transactions in Nintendo's first free-to-play puzzle game for 3DS, Pokémon Shuffle.

Boston-based start-up Akili Interactive and Delivering Scientific Innovation for Autism (DELSIA - a non-profit affiliated with Autism Speaks) announced today the formation of what they call a "clinical research collaboration agreement." Akili develops video games that (it claims) can diagnose and treat cognitive problems, including Alzheimer’s and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Blacks in Gaming (BIG) is hosting a GDC Party for those lucky enough to be attending the event this week in San Francisco. The party is sponsored by Xbox and will take place Thursday, March 5, 2015 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (PST). You can find out more information about the party here.

Pregnancy, a new "choose-your-own-adventure" style game from indie developer Locomotivah, is now available on Steam. The game, which the developers say is inspired by such games as Telltale's The Walking Dead and Atlus' Catherine, puts players in the role of a 14-year-old rape victim living in Hungary named Lilla Sandor.

In the game the player serves as a guiding internal influence for the girl, who is confused about what she should do after being sexually assaulted one night by a drunken criminal.

The Open Gaming Alliance (OGA) will release its seventh annual research report at the end of March in conjunction with market research firm DFC Intelligence. The new report, which focuses on the PC gaming sector, offers predictions on the sector from the end of 2014 up until 2018.

We all get that sex sells, but there's a reason that parties involving strippers and other male-focused titillation might be looked down upon in this day and age. After all it's no longer the 1990s and people expect party organizers to show some sensitivity to the growing number of women that attend game industry trade events like the Game Developers Conference.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm